# Making Room: Learning to Build Shared Understanding

I bring structure and reliability to collaboration. These artefacts trace how I began examining the assumptions behind those strengths, testing different practices, and asking whose knowledge actually changes our shared work.

## 1. What I counted as success

My Optiver Padlet foregrounded dividing technical work and building a working exchange. Bedwell et al. (2012) define collaboration through active, reciprocal engagement towards a shared goal, making the process itself worth examining. In A1, I concluded too categorically that we had only coordinated: the Padlet also records design discussions and trade-offs. The more useful question is how readily we could reopen a decision once implementation began. I cannot infer my teammate's experience from the absence of disagreement. This artefact now helps me question both my original measure of success and my subsequent self-critique.

## 2. Putting my values under examination

Mapping wealth inequality complicated my belief that effort and ability should determine reward. Our map connected opportunity to education, geography, and inherited advantage. I tried listening before solving, yet my reflection records returning to task completion as time ran out. Argyris (1994) makes examining one's own assumptions central to learning; applying that demand means questioning how my preference for progress shaped our discussion. Equal contribution did not establish that we scrutinised our shared framing. I still value competence, while asking what conditions allow people's competence to become visible and whose experience our account overlooks.

## 3. When coherence arrived too early

Our working-style board identified preparation and logical organisation as strengths, alongside overthinking and inflexibility. During the creativity exercise, we refined an argument about AI and inequality until time ran out. I helped make the idea coherent, but coherence became a reason to keep refining it. The Double Diamond distinguishes opening possibilities from focusing them, while allowing iteration (Design Council, n.d.). It offers a way to reconsider our sequence, although following a diagram would not guarantee creativity. I later practised separating generation from evaluation; the rotating challenger proposed in A1 remained an intention.

## 4. Explaining what makes a proposal worthwhile

In our social-isolation pitch, I contributed to a proposal organised around regular networking, attendance, financing, and evaluation. These details make an industrial justification visible: the initiative should be workable and measurable. Boltanski and Thévenot (1999) show how disputes can concern the grounds of judgement themselves. An attendance target cannot settle whether students feel included or whether those most isolated can participate. Reading our board this way changes what I would ask before defending the plan: whose account of belonging informs its design? The framework helps me examine an argument, while leaving people free to hold several values.

## 5. Testing our charter against our practice

Our retrospective placed equal contribution and mutual respect beside concerns that task progress displaced collective sense-making. The contrast matters because our charter also promised shared learning. Argyris's (1994) distinction between espoused commitments and theories-in-use helps me examine how my preference for dividing work could reproduce that gap. The retrospective did not establish that our relationships failed; it identified what efficient organisation could leave unattended. I now see a progress update as an opportunity to ask how our separate contributions change the shared understanding, as well as whether each assigned task is complete.

## 6. Recognising the signals I send

My Week 6 reflection describes speaking faster under pressure, narrowing my attention, then becoming quiet when stuck. I had treated silence as containing my stress. Barsade's (2002) laboratory study suggests expressed moods can influence group interaction, making that assumption questionable. Its short-term experimental groups cannot establish how my teammates experienced me. I began slowing down and naming uncertainty so others could respond to what I was struggling with. The change is an emerging practice, rather than a measured improvement in emotional intelligence: I need to attend to other people's responses instead of assuming that composure makes me approachable.

## 7. Testing an idea with other people

The devising workshop exposed different interpretations of the same gesture. Later, we replaced a vague AI-assisted interpreter flag with a phone-interpreter scene. I helped develop the script and acted. Glăveanu's (2010) cultural account connects creators, communities, new artefacts, and existing resources: our responses, Office-inspired format, and performance constraints shaped the scene. In my recollection, the two panellists praised the humour, creative risk, and characters' values, yet found the narrative jagged and the transition to the solution uneven. This shifts my evaluation towards connections between scenes: a fresh viewer explaining the turning point would offer a stronger test of narrative clarity.

## 8. Making small changes work together

I initially defended our modest healthcare resolution as realistic for students. Working with Chelsea helped us develop small changes across roles that collectively improved an imperfect system. Performance feedback appreciated that imperfection. In the storyboard, recording language preference matters because it survives handover and prompts interpreter support. Yet the marker identified a deeper limitation: Saksham supplied feedback while staff retained control of the pilot. Arnstein's (1969) distinction between consultation and decision-making power exposes what our account of participation left unresolved. Her civic-planning ladder is a lens, rather than a clinical rule. I would test whose contribution changes the design and whether resources sustain the proposed compromise.

## 9. Evaluating how we actually worked

Regular Zoom meetings, pre-seminar stand-ups, and WhatsApp helped us allocate work and resolve blockers. My final reflection records feeling able to offer uncertain ideas. That experience is consistent with Edmondson's (1999) account of interpersonal risk-taking, although my perspective cannot establish a shared team belief. Wednesday was our only common filming day, exposing dependencies we could have planned earlier. Successful delivery leaves an improvement: earlier checkpoints for work others depend on. In Stripe's infrastructure/core performance team, I intend to examine performance and reliability assumptions with the teams relying on our infrastructure, so their requirements can shape designs before implementation makes revision costly.

## 10. Letting another perspective change my statement

Awaiting external feedback on my Collaboration Statement.

## References

Argyris, C. (1994). Good communication that blocks learning. *Harvard Business Review, 72*(4), 77–85. https://hbr.org/1994/07/good-communication-that-blocks-learning

Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. *Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35*(4), 216–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225

Barsade, S. G. (2002). The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior. *Administrative Science Quarterly, 47*(4), 644–675. https://doi.org/10.2307/3094912

Bedwell, W. L., Wildman, J. L., DiazGranados, D., Salazar, M., Kramer, W. S., & Salas, E. (2012). Collaboration at work: An integrative multilevel conceptualization. *Human Resource Management Review, 22*(2), 128–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2011.11.007

Boltanski, L., & Thévenot, L. (1999). The sociology of critical capacity. *European Journal of Social Theory, 2*(3), 359–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/136843199002003010

Design Council. (n.d.). *Framework for innovation*. https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/framework-for-innovation/

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. *Administrative Science Quarterly, 44*(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Glăveanu, V. P. (2010). Paradigms in the study of creativity: Introducing the perspective of cultural psychology. *New Ideas in Psychology, 28*(1), 79–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.07.007

## AI acknowledgement

OpenAI Codex was used to review the supplied materials, organise and draft annotations, identify relevant literature, check wording and referencing, and build and test the website. The personal experiences come from my own artefacts, reflections, and clarifications. I remain responsible for verifying the claims and references and revising the final submission to represent my own experience and judgement.